The San Francisco Giants are getting disabled!

“Baseball players getting injured” is a stalwart topic of conversation in the Official Chatroom Of Major League Baseball™ and the defending World Series champions are rewriting the book. To get an insider’s perspective on the series of unfortunate events befalling the Giants I went to Giants fan and California resident Bill Hanstock, the man who helped me out with The Dugout by Charles Bukowski. Bill’s inside information was “oh my god” and “what is happening”, so I asked him to fill in on today’s strip. Dugout Celebrity Guest Writer week continues (roughly bi-monthly for the rest of my life)!

After the jump, check out part one of SFinal Destination. Part 2 will be arriving shortly, and you’d think that’d be the end, but nope, five more sequels.

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The first time we partnered up with DraftStreet to promote their free fantasy baseball game, I finished in the fifties. I was embarrassed, so on the second try I drafted a bunch of Cleveland Indians, thinking “sure, this is going to work, yeahhh Go Tribe”. They got shut out, and I finished in the hundred-and-fifties.

We’re gearing up for game three this Friday, and I’m shooting for the two-fifties, because it’s an Uproxx All-Star Fantasy Baseball Game. Beating the guy who does The Dugout isn’t enough for you? What about all three guys who do The Dugout? Jon Bois and Nick Dallamora are throwing in. What about Matt Ufford from Warming Glow (who apparently used to do something on this blog, I dunno)? What about Gotty™ from The Smoking Section? He’s already gotten up a piece about it. Punte, Burnsy, Danger Guerrero, and practically everybody you know from the Uproxx network of sites is playing, and because it is free you have the chance to win CASH MONEY and assert DOMINANCE over the ENTIRE WEBSITE.

Sign up right now, because the S is going down. We’re heading headlong into this thing this Friday with a $300 cash pool, and with me playing that is easy f**king money.

It’s going to work just like before. You draft a one-night team of players from a salary cap, and the team that performs the strongest takes the cash. It’s free and everyone cool you know is playing it, even Marissa Miller in a Cubs jersey [citation needed]. The game starts (and technically ends) on Friday, and I LOVE YOU so DO THIS FOR ME.

Spoiler alert: I’m drafting Buster Posey and Albert Pujols this time. I can’t lose!

It’s been almost six months in Internet time since Buster Posey went down to a debilitating “entire body” injury, and Giants fans want answers. Posey’s agent wants Major League Baseball to enact “Buster’s Rule,” a rule wherein players would no longer be allowed to crash into catchers in exciting home plate collisions. Of course, this rule change would instantly heal Posey’s leg, and he’d be able to get back into the starting lineup within days. Hopefully, this will happen.

Arguments and visual aids have been presented across the blogosphere, and now the only respected voice in sports, The Dugout, must make its statement. What follows is the actual transcript between commissioner Bud Selig and Jeff Berry, Posey’s agent and a man who is lucky I haven’t introduced the Quisenberry Challenge to With Leather yet. If you know a baseball fan and they have an opinion, show them this transcript and set them straight. Today’s Dugout follows.

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A few days ago I announced the return of DraftStreet.com’s free fantasy baseball game at With Leather, including a big photo of Buster Posey and a story about how I drafted him in the last game and he was terrible. Well, fast forward to Wednesday and what happens? Buster Posey dies tragically in a “standing in front of the plate without holding the ball” accident. Okay, he didn’t die, but he got hurt badly enough for me to pretend I’ve got my own Madden Curse.

So, unless you want Scott Cousins to come screaming in and injure the entirety of the Detroit Tigers, you’ll click through this link and sign up for our game. It’s free, and you’ll be saving the careers of up to 25 professional baseball players. Either way, I win! Go Tribe!

The “but no, seriously” section:

But no, seriously, the game is fun. You draft a team of guys for Friday night, and the player with the best results from the day’s games (not counting Pirates/Cubs, because it happens too early) gets money from a $300 cash pool. You get free money for barely doing anything. It’s like being a blogger! Sign up, and support your local website.

Adorable San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey was absolutely ENDED by Scott Cousins during a play at the plate last night, and the news keeps getting worse. Posey has a broken leg and torn ligaments, and it looks like his season is over. Hopefully that’s all that he’ll miss, because hits like this are usually followed by Faces of Death transitional graphics.

If you watch the video it was a clean play at the plate, Posey just got hit so hard he nearly traveled back in time. He missed the ball and turned into it face first. Posey’s agent is using the 13-year old star’s injury as a call to arms against Major League Baseball.

“You leave players way too vulnerable,” Berry said. “I can tell you Major League Baseball is less than it was before [Posey's injury]. It’s stupid. I don’t know if this ends up leading to a rule change, but it should. The guy [at the plate] is too exposed.

“If you go helmet to helmet in the NFL, it’s a $100,000 fine, but in baseball, you have a situation in which runners are [slamming into] fielders. It’s brutal. It’s borderline shocking. It just stinks for baseball. I’m going to call Major League Baseball and put this on the radar. Because it’s just wrong.”

Maybe next year catchers will sit in a dunk tank at home plate, and runners will only be safe if they can slide directly into the target. I know I run the risk of sounding like a “traditionalist” (whatever that is), but I think nonstop rule changes aren’t the problem with baseball. I think “put Buster Posey in a suit of armor, sue everybody, change everything” is a pretty misguided attempt at baseball justice, and that “holy sh** Buster Posey got wrecked, let’s make sure he’s okay again at some point during the rest of his life” is the more constructive approach.

[video @ MLB.com]

With Leather is teaming up once again with DraftStreet.com for a freeroll of fantasy baseball, and I’m looking for redemption. Last time around I spent all of my money on Troy Tulowitzki and Buster Posey. They went a combined 0-for-about-85 on the night. I finished 54th.

But, like I said, we’re doing it again, and your chance to win is even greater. Sign up using this link or any of the similar links I’ve scattered throughout this blog entry for your part of a $300 prize pool. We’re paying out to the top seven, so take a few seconds and be one of the 53 people who know more about statistical probability than me. And if that’s not enough, don’t forget the Internet Jerk who put 60 bucks into DraftStreet and built it into nine grand. That should be reason enough for anybody.

It’s gonna be just like before, where you draft a player for each position, and your Friday night performance decides the results. The only game that isn’t going to count is the 2:20 Pirates vs Cubs affair, both because we want to wait for the regulars to get in, and because nobody’s going to draft a Pirate anyway.